One More Spin

This is one of the most unique cases I've ever been involved in.

“Personally, it's an attorney as a prosecutor, or anything that I've read or seen.”

Jeffrey focused prosecuted the case against Melody Ferris, when she went on trial for the murder of her husband Gary. It was October 2024. Six years after Gary's charred remains were found in a burn pile on the Ferris property. The type of murder that happened in this case under the facts doesn't happen a lot,

but if it were to happen, it would be in this family. This family, the Ferris family. When prosecutor Fogus began his opening statement, he introduced them one by one to the jury,

sharing a photograph of Gary, Melody, and their four children on Emily's wedding day.

They looked happy, but as we know by now, looks can be deceiving. You don't hear about the Ferris wheel.

“Unfortunately for this family, as they have drum, they are not a perfect family.”

Listening stoically, her lips perched at the defense table was the matriarch, Melody Ferris. Dressed in all black with shoulder-length gray hair and a strand of elegant pearls around her neck. Her eyes followed the prosecutor as he told jurors about her motives for killing her husband. Money, sex, and a new life with her traveling salesman lover.

The truth. The sight as it is, is harness as it is, is that the defendant murdered and desecrated her own husband. Over the course of the week's long trial, all the Ferris family secrets, jellacies, and resentments would air out in public.

Melody's sad and watched, as each of her children took the stand. Three of them, Chris Scott and Emily, testified against their mother. "I felt something was very often red flags." She became more hostile, she was more aggressive with us. "I just had my suspicions that she had something to do with us."

“Can you describe what it was like to watch each of your children take the stand?”

"The most heart-wrenching, gut-wrenching thing I had ever set their mind to our life." "Because I neither rely." Only youngest daughter Amanda distanced herself from her siblings, refusing to believe her mother was capable of murder. She has told me that she's not guilty, and all I can do is believe that until somebody

can prove she is guilty, so I would like to believe that my mother had nothing to do with this." That burden of proof was on the prosecution, and while there was lots of circumstantial evidence, there was no eyewitness, no confession, and no damning DNA evidence.

Investigators never found the suspected murder weapon.

That 38 snub nose revolver Scott claimed was in the basement. To mention something else, something literally big that the defense argued just didn't make sense. The sheer weight of Gary, in the fact that it's just not possible that he could have been moved by a 120-pound woman if the murder scene was in fact within the house. But as the defense worked as so doubt, a surprise witness came forward.

"I worried about this for a long time." I'm Peter Van Satt, from 48 hours, this is Blood Is Thicker, the Ferris Wheel. Episode 6, One More Spin. In the fall of 2024, jury members heard evidence about the crime scene, the digital data from the phone records, and Gary's CPAP machine.

Not to mention testimony from what of Melody's former lovers, Ted Wiley. And of course, there was Melody's most recent Paramore, Rusty Barton. "Can we agree that your job is to tell us the truth?" "Correct. The whole truth?"

"And nothing but." Prosecutor Jeffrey Fogus questioned Rusty on the stand, and knew he had to challenge this colorful southern personality. His charming charismatic, a smart, he had the ability to talk and also push back when he wanted to.

So, Rusty was extremely reluctant.

he had already changed his story.

“If you recall, Rusty changed his story about when Melody revealed to him that Gary was”

in the burn pile.

He first told police, Melody said Gary was in the burn pile early on the 4th of July.

The four-law enforcement was alerted that Gary was even missing, but then Rusty retracted and said Melody told him the burn pile story after the remains were discovered. But Fogus told me he had a strategy when it came to this tale of two stories. You basically give the jury two options. The first statement, the second statement, and they get to believe which one they believe

and use that. So, our goal with Rusty was to get him to paint the relationship he had with the defendant, talk about the affair, talk about how close they were, talk about the plans that they have for each other. Fogus asked Rusty about his relationship with Melody.

"Is it awkward being here in court in front of her?" "It's awkward being in court period though yes." We consider your feelings for the defendant at this moment. How much love do you have for her? "I don't know that that's a major ballad on."

Fogus pressed Rusty on his decision to recant his story a year later after Melody was in jail. There was that call we played in the last episode where Melody confronts Rusty about talking to law enforcement. The jury heard all of it. "And you agree with me that the defendant in this jail call was very concerned with you

talking, right?" "Yes." "And the worst she used were single-handedly hanged me." "Yes." "It's not what an isn't person says, isn't it?"

"I don't know who," what she said or what I said. "What she said?" "Well I guess if you were locked up and somebody had said something against you, you'd probably say that too." "Because if the jury believes what you said on July 24th that she had knowledge that he was

in the Burmout, she's guilty of murder, right?" "It has true." "I'm coming on that one." "Because you don't want to come into." "No."

Rusty never went back to his original story on the stand.

But the prosecution felt he delivered.

“He was an important witness for many reasons.”

The Rusty was Rusty, but he was... We felt like we had a plan with him, we felt like we got that plan done. We also couldn't project the future that Martha Jane would come into the picture later on. Martha Jane Barton, while she was Melody's second cousin, Melody said they had more of a mother-daughter relationship.

When Martha Jane fell ill in 2014, Melody helped take care of her. And that's when Melody reconnected with Rusty Barton, who she first met as a teenager. Rusty also happened to be Martha Jane's stepson.

Then this country's soap opera, Martha Jane didn't know her second cousin and stepson

were intimate. It was only after Martha Jane saw Rusty testify that she picked up the phone and called law enforcement. "How were you feeling when you called that number?" "Oh, I had a heavy, heavy horror.

Did you sleep the night before?" "I worried about this for a long time." And what she had to say, surprised even the prosecutors. "I had a gun, that was missing." Martha Jane told the court that years earlier her husband Roy, Rusty's father, got her

a gun as a Christmas present to use for protection. What kind of gun was it? It was the 38th facial, and he said it was called a Saturday night facial.

“This was important because Scott Ferris had told the sheriff's department that he had seen”

that type of gun in the basement weeks before Gary's murder. Only for it to disappear, the day Gary's remains were found.

chest, and who else knew it was there? "Did you have a weak moment when you told her where some things were in your house?" "I didn't." "Why was it weak?" "Well, looking back on it, it was weak."

Martha Jane said she told Melody all about it around the time of Emily's wedding in 2016. But defense attorney John Luke Weaver didn't buy it.

“Why hadn't Martha Jane brought up this missing gun earlier?”

"He never said anything about a missing gun to Melody.

He never called law enforcement and reported this gun stolen. He still had not reported this gun stolen." He asked if she had any proof that this gun ever even existed. "I don't have a receipt or anything, I think. In '79, you didn't have, I'm sure you didn't have.

"The defense argued there was no picture. No witness, no nothing, to support Martha Jane's claim besides Martha Jane herself." "I know I had a gun, then and I know I don't have a gun." Could they convince the jury that there was enough doubt in this case to a quit Melody? Her attorneys turned on the detectives.

At the end of the day, it was kind of a failure of who was in charge of this investigation.

So they never actually had a plan.

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"We're thirsty, total, and we leveled up our business with Shopify." "Start your free trial at Shopify.com/ AU." "Every case is our job to raise doubt. But in this case, we felt that the investigation was not conducted properly by the state. So we felt like we had to do it."

Defense Attorney John Luke Weaver told me he not only had to be a lawyer in this case, but also a detective of sorts. We talked in 2024. "And we felt like we had to do it through the trial ourselves, live in front of the jury.

“That's what we feel like we needed to do to bring justice for Melody."”

So Weaver and his co-counsel began poking holes. They started with the prosecution's assertion that Melody first shot Gary in the kitchen. "The forensic evidence doesn't line up with that." "If you're to say that the shooting would happen in the kitchen area, you would expect far more blood." "And there just really wasn't."

"They've never been able to give an explanation for the lack of blood.

It is consistent with a dog bite instead of a shooting." "Here's Amanda." "And my husband said, "Today I'm Gary, what happened to your leg?" "He said, "Today I'm dog, bit me," meaning Molly, who are a little black, mopbed." "They're a little tearier dog."

So Molly was kind of an ankle-batter, essentially, I don't like that dog. For lack of a better term, but you saw with your own eyes this injury to your dad's leg. "Yes, it was bad." "And what about that bullet detectives found in the basement?" "There's not a zero amount of blood around the bullet.

Nothing is out of place. Nothing is broken. Every single witness testified that there was nothing out of place in those spots." But that bullet had Gary's DNA on it. How did it get there then?

“If the shooting didn't take place in the house, how did it get there?”

Are you suggesting someone planted it? I think that's possible. I asked about Gary's blood on the tractor. The defense said it doesn't make sense that blood came from moving Gary's body because there was none of his blood in the bucket of the tractor.

And what about Melody's blood on the RTV? They claimed she had simply cut her finger minutes earlier when she broke a dinner plate during an argument. And how do you interpret this cell phone analysis that shows his phone moving from the house to the burn pile where authorities believe he's dead and if the person who's carrying

that phone must be Melody? So they actually didn't give us the full scope of the information.

We saw that he went to dinner the night before, but we didn't necessarily see for hours

“throughout the night where the phone was located.”

And furthermore, there was no one sent to testify who actually worked for Google. This was a Google G offense. And we had a member of essentially the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office who was tendered as an expert and she became the all-knowledgeable person on Google Geofinces at that time. And so I don't know that that's necessarily reliable evidence.

What about that, Melody? What do you have to say about that? Well, I do want to note this. So Melody, of course, for them that just made the most sense. That was just easy.

That was the easy route to go. But what in reality was Melody didn't want for anything. When you look at the pictures, I mean, her house was immaculately decorated. She had fantastic clothes and shoes and Gary let her have whatever she wanted, because that was her money as well.

“Everyone, all the children would say, well, that was Dad's money.”

But they're married. And under Georgia Law, what's mine is yours and what's yours is mine in marriage. According to investigators, she was in love with Rusty. He had looked at some wedding rings and they are claiming that these two were planning on getting married and living happily ever after with Gary's money.

They don't know that. That was sheer speculation. Who else had motive to kill Gary in your opinion? Scott Fares. And his motive would be.

Financial. He wanted the property. He was jealous. He wanted to be his father. And he couldn't.

Scott told police about a missing gun. What do you think of the missing gun story? He made it up.

There was never a missing gun.

During the defense's cross examination of Scott Fares, John Luke weaver pressed him about the 38 snub nose revolver Scott said he saw in the basement before Gary's death. And you didn't tell anybody about that gun. You didn't talk to your dad about it. No, because I forgot.

I completely forgot about it. You didn't talk to your mother about it. No, because she wasn't in town. Well, she was obviously in town at some point. The defense was suggesting to jurors that Scott's behavior was fishy.

He didn't tell his parents about seeing the gun or that he noticed it had disappeared. Scott did alert detectives that it was missing as soon as they arrived at the farm before they found the bullet in Gary's rib cage. 10 hours. 12 hours before this bullet is filed.

You have set them off looking for things. You have been controlling where they go and what they do. Have you not? No, I'm controlling. I just asked him to search the house to see if they could find that gun because I knew something bad had happened.

Weaver bored in turning up the pressure. Did you shoot him at the bar, Scott? I never shot my father.

“Did you take that bullet and put that bullet in the floor in your mother's house?”

I never knew of that bullet.

Then weaver cleverly used Scott's own body as potential evidence. He asked him to stand up, which revealed Scott's height of over six feet five inches. How much do you weigh? I'm about too many. You can have a seat.

You understand that you are the only person on the property who could have physically pulled off what the District Attorney's office and the state has alleged that your mother did. You're aware you're the only person. Why?

Because Melody Ferris stands a mere five feet four inches and according to police reports, weighs just 120 pounds, allegedly not big or strong enough to lift her giant husband. And Weaver wasn't done making his point. During his closing argument, he decided this one unresolved issue could lead to an acquittal formality.

He turned to some props he had stacked up in the courtroom. Weaver walked across the courtroom away from the jury to pick up a bag of rock salt. One after another, he carried the 40-pound bags of salt back and dropped them in front of

Weaver was stacking enough rock salt to equal the more than three-hundred-pound weight of the victim.

Gary Ferris.

“And 20 pounds can move this, that is it now and it's over.”

Weaver placed all of the bags of salt into two larger brown construction bags. Then, with considerable strain, he tried to drag them across the floor. This is 300 in 20 pounds and I am 180-five pounds. Weaver gritted his teeth and pulled the salt a few feet before giving up. And that's all I have.

Out of breath, he put his hands on his hips and lowered his head as if he'd finished a sprint.

He wanted jurors to see for themselves how nearly impossible it was for him to move that 300-pound pile. The doubt, I can tend to you, absolutely exist, I'm sorry I had to do this demonstration. But they didn't.

“Melody's face was now in the hands of the jury.”

They had heard from just about everyone on the Ferris wheel, except one, Melody herself. And it was what she later said in the courtroom after the trial and then in an exclusive interview with me, that set the Ferris wheel spinning into outer space. I wanted to drift out there and this is why I am making this statement. Hi, my name is Lloyd Lockridge and I'm the host of a new podcast from Odyssey called

Family Lore. In this podcast I'm going to have people on to tell unusual and sometimes far-fetched stories about their families. I've heard my whole life that she ended at the Margarita.

“And then we're going to investigate those stories and find out how much of it is true.”

He gets a pattern one month before the ride by this, "Oh my God, please follow and listen to Family Lore, an Odyssey podcast available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your shows." The Melody Ferris trial had garnered national attention. And after three days of deliberating, the jury was deadlocked.

When you got the tax message that the jury gave a note to the judge that they were home. Scott Ferris remembered receiving the news. Immediately we were all sick terrorist on it, because we didn't know what that meant. And informed that there was one holdout, one juror preventing a final verdict, the judge ordered the jury to go back and try again.

A day later, on November 4th, 2024, the jury announced they had made a determination. And then it's in your head, crap, we don't know if she's, they found her guilty or not guilty. And it's most nerve-wracking thing, you get, I don't think you had to ever know how that filling is. Full of fear and anticipation, Melody stood, her eyes welled up with tears.

We had the jury as the account, count five, we found the defendant guilty. We had the jury as to count four, find the defendant guilty. Melody put both hands over her mouth, as the verdicts for the five counts against her were read aloud. Melody was found guilty of two counts of murder, aggravated assault, concealing the death

of another and making a false statement.

jurors told me what ultimately clinched their decision was the evidence showing Gary's

phone moving back and forth from the burned pile to the house when Melody was the only other person at the farm. Was the verdict agreed to by you?

Is it still your verdict?

It is.

“All right, you may be seated, that's all my jurors.”

Sitting back down, Melody buried her face in her hands, Scott told me he felt relief. Because we got justice from my father. He fought six years to get answers, and hopefully found out the truth. But the legal process wasn't over yet, one month later, it was time for sentencing. Yes, rumored.

From here here, on sand, door to over, so Melody walked with her, and twenty-three C.R. With her. Melody returned to the courtroom this time wearing an orange uniform. The prosecution played a video of Gary Ferris with his baby granddaughter, and then read a statement from Emily on behalf of the family.

Scott and his brother Chris were present to listen. Emily wrote, "Gary was not just our beloved father, but our confidant and our rock." She added, "This loss is only made worse by the betrayal of trust we feel for our mother." And then came a dramatic moment, years, in the making.

“All right, Miss Harris, if you have a statement.”

I did. I've written this so that I could get the door. After staying silent during the trial, Melody went on the attack. "I want the world to know who did this."

I was there in the courtroom, and what she said was a first for me.

Not only did I not do this, but who did, and what Scott called his father. There were audible gasps in the courtroom, as a mother proclaimed her son the murderer of his own father. "I refused to cover for you." Scott turned red-faced with anger, shaking his head no as she continued.

His brother Chris looked blindsided. And I plead with you to row this verdict out. "He helped me get justice for the correct person." His parents say, "I want to be there to watch him change and tackle and brought to justice." Her words didn't influence the judge.

He sent in 64-year-old Melody to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years.

She also received an additional five years for concealing Gary's death by burning his remains

and making a false statement to police. For Scott, who denied killing his father, Melody's last words were a final chap. "That shows you what she was like. One last turn of the night." "One last turn."

"Last to make somebody's life living hell because it didn't go her way." That's the woman that we had to deal with. Now my question is, "Do you want to interview her for for her something or after?" "After." So she went from the courtroom to y'all.

Yes, right after that breathtaking sentencing, Melody walks straight from the courtroom to our interview chair, Peter Vensen. She sat down in front of me with both her hands and feet shackled. "I just watched one of the most extraordinary moments inside a courtroom that I have ever seen in my career.

What do you want the world? What do you want this audience to know?" "I didn't do this, I don't know who did." "And a shadow of a tell." "And I'm a son that it."

"And why would he do that? Was that an attempt to frame you?" "I'm sure. I'm positive. I would bank my life on it."

It was as my Nell son-in-law said, "Is the perfect murder? You kill your daddy. You set your mother up. She goes to prison. You get everything."

“You believe that's what this was, a conspiracy to kill his own father and to frame you for”

it. "That is a shadow of a doubt." I asked about that phone call with Rusty at 23 AM on July 4th. Did she tell Rusty that Gary was in the burn pile? "I never told him that.

Not then. I told him that Gary had started the burn pile and that I was concerned that he was going to catch the lids on fire." I pointed out that she was caught in lies with investigators from the start, like her affair

"I did lie to them about Rusty."

“"And you realize when you lie, it destroys your disability."”

"I didn't, I didn't want to be, have innocent people brought into something that didn't have to be." And in hindsight, I should've told them right off the bat.

I told them I did not have a second phone, but yet that second phone was taken out of

my purse where it was when Detective Hay searched it. I knew he took it. When you were asked if you had a second cell phone and you said, "No, you were lying there to write." So, there's a couple of lies now, you're telling.

And you, like I said, you lied to, to investigate, or that's just the red meat. It's one thing to lie about in a fair, it's another thing to lie about the rest of it. The two of you were not talking about getting there. Absolutely not. And you're telling me the truth, right?

Absolutely. And what if you were planning on getting married, it sounds like a motive for murder. "You don't marry the person you're having unfairly."

“And what about what Martha Jane said on the stand about her missing gun?”

"I know Martha Jane will. I know that when she gets angry, there's pure venom that spews out of her mouth." "Did you have anything to do with her missing gun?" "Absolutely not." "Why do you think she said this?"

"I don't know. I don't know. I don't talk to her." As for her accusation about Scott's role, she told me she believed her other children were aware.

"I did." "You do." "I did." "And I'm, Emily, I'm not so sure about. Emily, I'm, I mean Amanda, I'm positive she knows."

"How about Chris?" "Chris? Oh yeah.

“I think him, you know, he knew from the get-go.”

Why would your children, Gary's children, all agree or cover up for Scott on this?" "Money. Money. Absolutely money." Chris and Scott, you saw it, denied they had anything to do with their father's death.

And at times we're emotional about it, what did you think as you watched that? The Scott that was in that courtroom was not my song. You understand, though, that, to people listening to this, they're thinking, here is a mother willing to sacrifice not only her son Scott, but potentially two of her other children to save her own skin.

What would you say to that? This is a mother's worst nightmare. It is. It is beyond their, you know, it has been called the Ferris Wheel. And it was, but it was our Ferris Wheel.

It was our life.

I never intended for it to be put out on the public at all, never wanted anybody to know.

"Do you think you will ever be able to repair your relationship with your children or them? Will you want to?" "Oh, absolutely. I want to.

I pray every day it will." "Despite all that's happened." "Despite all that's happened." "Despite three of their beliefs that you are a killer." "They're much older."

"And for those who believe, you've got exactly what you deserved." "You say?" "I didn't do it." "I did not do it." Melody has requested a new trial, arguing that the evidence does not support the verdict,

and that the state failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she was guilty. As of this recording, a judge is scheduled to consider Melody's motion in June 2026. No one else has been charged in connection to her husband's murder.

Had the Ferris Wheel finally come to a stop, for Scott, he may never make sense of his

family's tragedy. "She used to be a mother to me." "Now after she murdered my father, no, she turned into a evil person." He only hopes that one day he and his family can move on and find some peace. "It is embarrassing to us."

"I mean, this is, we don't wish just to pawn anybody." "So, but it's also been seen around the world. We're hoping we're able to put this in our past, and talk about the good times." "Not about this." From 48 hours, this is bloodesticker, the Ferris Wheel produced by Sony Music Entertainment.

Judy Tigard is the executive producer of 48 hours.

“Original reporting by 48 hours producers Betsy Schuler, Ryan Smith, and Hannah Vare.”

Jamie Benson is the senior producer for CBS News Podcasts, and Mara Walsh is the senior

story editor, recording assistance from Alan Pang and Alana Myers.

“Special thanks to CBS News Podcast Vice President Megan Marcus.”

Blood is thicker, was written and produced by Alex Schumman.

Stephanie Sorano is our editor, our executive producer is Sharamores, our associate producer

“is Zoe Kolkka, theme and original music composed by Hans Dale Shee.”

Sedrick Wilson is our sound designer and mix the episodes. We also use music from Epidemic Sounds. Fendell Fulton is our fact checker. Our production manager is Tamika Balance Colassini. If you're enjoying the show, be sure to rate and review.

It helps more people find it, and here are reporting. Thanks for listening.